The Dark Night Of The Soul
by like-an-officer-and-a-sergeant
Summary: Patrick and Shelagh after Ep. 3.7. AU. Talking nightly of their problems. Guaranteed angst.
1. Chapter 1

_This is AU after Ep. 3.7., and it was written before Ep.3.8., so out of canon now. The relevancy of these nightly talks depends on your imagination of how the events could have progressed before the adoption. The characters of Patrick and Shelagh are not anymore the same ones as in _**Songs of Bernadette**_ or _**The Marriage Vows**. _My apologies for my non-native English, as ever._

The Dark Night Of The Soul, part 1

It was 3 am. Shelagh had woken up and seeing that Patrick was not beside her, she went downstairs.

He was leaning unto the kitchen sink and nibbling a biscuit, in his pyjamas and bathrobe. There seemed to be a tea pot nearby and a tea-cup that didn't look very inviting. Shelagh thought he has just warmed up some water and added it to the teapot from last night.

Then he saw her looking at him through the kitchen hatch. He turned around, seemingly unable to meet her gaze and that turn was so abrupt that the cup fell into the kitchen sink.

"Oh bloody hell." He picked up the cup. "At least it is not broken".

He didn't turn to face her and he was breathing heavily. There was a forlornness about him that Shelagh was nearly frightened to see. But she was a bold girl. At least she said that to herself. She walked into the kitchen.

"Patrick, are you turning your back on me because of me?" she queried, hoping to catch him by this phrase. His state of mind was unknown to her. But she had to try.

"No, Shelagh." His voice was weary." At least, I don't think I am. It is not you. It is not because of you."

She came closer and put her arms around him from behind. He didn't push her away, but his head was sunk and he was immobile. Finally, he put his hands on her hands. He released her arms and turned slowly to face her, still keeping her hands in his. His face was oddly passive for a person so much in pain. Only the lips were trembling. He took her left hand and stroke the palm of it. The scar was now invisible.

She decided to take a plunge. "Patrick, is this your Dark Night of The Soul?"

"Shelagh, I don't know what you mean. Is that some kind of religious image?"

"Yes it is, but the Dark Night of The Soul isn't limited to religious people."

"I don't know what this is..."

They remained silent, facing each other. Perhaps there were things better left behind, Shelagh thought. She didn't really know. Moments passed.

" _'My Gracious Silence' _".* Patrick's voice was oddly high. "Who said that? It was about his wife, wasn't it?"

"Coriolanus."

"Another tormented devil. Oh Shelagh. I can't explain."

"Try. I am not leaving anywhere. Not in anytime soon. This is our kitchen. Our marital home. This is not some...hall of torture."

"No it isn't. But it is not easy ...to describe the hell I saw in the last stages of war. Or the...Northfield. I was in fact a lucky one. I was worn out and...depressed, but at least I hadn't lost all my faculties. There were guys who had hallucinations, paranoid symptoms and nervous tics. It was awful."

"You should have told me. "

"Yes, I should have. Shelagh, I ask you. Once more. To see what is forgivable and unforgivable. If you think that...I have hurt you with deliberate intent... it is not true. I was trying to protect you. I can't say that I succeeded in that. The hurt ... this great...was truly an accident."

"Patrick. I didn't mean to hurt you either." She drew him closer to her. He put his arms hesitantly around her shoulders. Shelagh felt how tense his body was. "But I can't at the moment see what is right and wrong. Or useful. You must give me time. To fully grasp...the forgivable. "

"You think this could be forgivable?" Patrick winced a little. "How odd that sounds". He buried his head into her hair for a moment. "You have had to forgive me so much, starting from that first kiss."

"I thought you a brave man then, Patrick."

He looked up and made her step back a little by pushing her further from him. He watched her with a desperate smile. "Did you? Why?"

"You were brave to respect my vocation."

"Yes. Perhaps it was a bit...courageous."

"I also remember the man who wrote me letters to the sanatorium. A brave gesture..."

"The letters which you didn't answer." He let out a sad little laugh. "I was inclined to think you were deliberate in that. I once lost my...balance for a moment when I realised that you wrote to everyone else but me. It was in the Parish Hall Kitchen. I even nearly broke a tea cup like tonight and started to talk oddly. Trixie was there and thought I was mad. Perhaps I was..."

"Patrick, don't you dare to blame yourself for...loving me. Please don't do that."

"You ask me that? Truly?"

"Yes. I do ask you not to doubt what has transpired between us. All that has happened between us. This...pain included. If this is for worse...then it is. To get better we have to keep living. Until we feel alive again. "

"Oh, to feel alive again..." he sputtered out angrily. Then he sat down by the table. He put his head into his hands. He started to cry. Shelagh sat by him and after a while, drew his head to lean unto her. He didn't resist. There they sat, until it came to an end.

*_**The dialogue is from "Busman's Honeymoon" by Dorothy L. Sayers, addressing Lord Peter Wimsey's war neurosis. The play Coriolanus by Shakespeare quoted in there.**_


	2. Chapter 2

It was 5 am. Patrick woke up and saw Shelagh's side of the bed empty. He heaved a sigh. Although they were further from each other than ever, they still seemed to follow each other's sleeping patterns. Or the deep need to be in bed...together. So much that the absence of other made you wake up. The pressure of the situation was no help to sleep, of course.

He went downstairs, and in the bleak light of the morning, Shelagh was sitting in the kitchen reading a prayer book. She was reading aloud a psalm in a very low voice.

She startled when she saw him in the doorway. "Patrick...". She shut her prayer book and there was a quiet pleading in her voice.

He made a wan attempt at humour. "Maybe we should sometimes try to meet in this kitchen at daytime."

"It would be good to meet...at some level...anywhere," was Shelagh's slightly weary response.

"Couldn't you sleep? How long have you been here?"

"For half an hour. I wanted to pray."

"I'm sorry I interrupted."

"There is no interruption, prayer is a continuous way of life".

"I am sorry I have interrupted your life, I mean."

"Oh Patrick. I think religious life has taught me that a life is a series of interruptions."

"Really?"

Shelagh sighed. "Remember the times you were driving me in your car to the hospital? To the sanatorium? I feel like we're again and again at the sanatorium gate. Saying trivialities to each other. Except now there is no triple treatment."

Patrick sat down. At least she was talking to him, although he couldn't take it all in. "Some dreams came true," he said with a mixture of longing and desperation.

"And I was never lonely, because I was married to you". The past tense pierced Patrick's heart.

"Patrick." She took his arm and put it deliberately around her. He let her do that although he wasn't sure of what was expected of him. "Talk to me," she pleaded.

After a moment, he started to talk. Like to himself, with an occasional stammer, some long pauses between the sentences. It was fractured, inconsequential, fuzzy.

"On that road, when I saw you...after you had phoned me from the sanatorium. I was dizzy. That you would be mine. That there was a possibility that you would be mine. That you would accept me. As your spouse. That you would take a lowly, agnostic, widowed GP...as your vocation. Or whatever you call it in religious life.

My delight was so great that it kind of made other considerations...unimportant. For a while at least. After Moira's death, I was downtrodden, sad and numb, but at least I did not have...these compulsions. You know, nightmares and irritation and so on. I was only disconnected, like a dream-walker. I had a son to raise, a quite a handful of a son, and I was loaded with work. Then you came to my life. And it still seemed like dream-walking. I felt for you, and it seemed like a dream. The realities, you being a nun and your TB, I don't know, I was in a kind of autopilot which made me brave. Braver than I ever was.

It is no excuse, of course. I wanted to forget. To think I had passed...all those symptoms. I wanted to forget that I had ever been...not in my right mind. At mental hospital."

Shelagh made a whimpering noise and drew a breath at this.

Patrick took a minute and swallowed. He touched her cheek, from a distance. As in awe. _" 'Do not laugh at me; For, as I am a man, I think this lady To be my child Cordelia'_." He sighed. "Or should I say _'__You have some cause'?_"*

Shelagh took a firmer grip of his arm around her. _"No cause_. I'd like to say no cause. But I can't. I need to see how this happened. It is just not helpful to not look at the causes in this case."

"I am sorry. I have perhaps not been in my right mind since Moira died. I should never have let you to tie your life with me. You should have stayed in the Order, perhaps."

"Patrick. You're starting that blaming game again. It was not entirely your doing, my leaving the order."

"Wasn't it? Tell me about that. Tell me that I didn't bring this misery to you."

"This isn't pure misery. As you said, so many dreams came true."

"Just not all of them."

There was a long silence. Finally, Shelagh broke it.

"Patrick, we have to learn to make amends and find a way. It is true that you were remarkably brave when you wrote to me at the sanatorium. You perhaps didn't say enough. In some respect. But at the time, you said some wonderful things that gave me strength. A strength to live, with you or without you. You saved me from living in a lie. Even if you could not go on being so brave...or honest...it still matters to me."

"Thank you, my dear. It matters to me to hear that."

Again, a silence fell. Then Patrick turned to look at her, with a pained expression.

"There are things that are difficult to express...not just about Northfield. About the war. About my...first marriage. Just as there are things in your life experience that I can't always understand. I will try, but I won't always succeed."

"Yes, and I gave the promise. For better and for worse. The religious life, even if I have forfeited a right to say anything about it, as Sr Evangeline says, is not made of dreams. So I am not a dream-chaser. Not always. But you have to find your own way. A way to go on living until it does not hurt. A way of being...in this marriage. If I am not able to help you, you must find other help."

"You do help me. And I will find other help. I promise."

***Shakespeare, King Lear**


	3. Chapter 3

It was 6 am. Shelagh woke up and found herself alone in their bed. This had been now going on for a fortnight, but not every night. They had made some small steps in the daytime. He had started to help her in the washing up and hoovering, "just to be near you" he had said. It was like an act of repentance. But what there was to repent, that was yet not very clear. Shelagh didn't want to hear him blaming himself, because it seemed to serve in place of something else. In place of understanding himself.

They had even talked of the adoption. A baby they now might never get. The talk had been difficult but necessary. That talk had helped her to see how his eagerness to please her had led to that disastrous interview. Yet she felt that her face now certainly _"no contentment wore, it was all tears and sadness"._ She needed time to mourn.

This morning, she found him in the living room downstairs. He was sitting on the sofa, smoking a cigarette. He was looking into a distance. When he saw her, he quickly picked up the cigarette case.

"Do you want one?"

"Yes, please." She sat by him and he lit her cigarette. A silence continued. Then he turned to her and said:

"We've always been better at silences and intuition than real talk."

"That is so true."

"I was not always wrong when I trusted my intuition. I found you on the right road".

"Yes, you did. But I am not sure we can go on like this."

"Neither am I. But I am an old dog. You must bear with me. I will learn slowly. If ever."

"I know. I just hope that there is some level of trust between us. Isn't it odd that when I was a nun we seemed to work with each other with such ease. Now it is more difficult for me to get the sense of...what you're thinking. It is like _"A Cloud Of Unknowing"._

"Is that another religious classic that I am ignorant of?" Patrick asked, with a deliberate patience. It was an effort for him, but as a gesture it seemed worthy of this search for a delicate balance.

"Patrick, I am not trying to convert you. I am trying to let you know me better."

"I know. I respect your trust in me. Even in things that are truly strange to me."

The silence that followed seemed to resemble the old times they had had together, at least to some degree. Patrick smiled and Shelagh seemed to be thinking hard and yet she was comfortable in his presence.

"Patrick, there are wonderful passages in that book. It is suitable for a scientist as well. It urges us to abandon all the webs and barriers of our knowledge and trust a "_naked blind feeling of being_".

"That does not sound very scientific to me, but it is beautiful. I get the sense of it."

"It says that you must wait for the "_dart of longing love from the heart"_ to reach your destination."

"What is that destination?"

"That is the beauty of it. There is no destination. Just being. Of course it relies on the concept of God as a Superior Being, as the origin of all being."

"I like it. I wish it were so."

Suddenly Shelagh became emotional and started sobbing. Patrick stumped his cigarette and took her into an embrace.

"Patrick, we have to let go. Of the past."

"Yes, we do. I know I have to."

He was a bit unsure of what more he should say. Their old riffs sounded too well-worn or unreal in this fragile new relationship. Yet he thought that not all of the old was lost.

"We will fight a good fight. Do you find a one in yourself, my officer?"

"Yes, my sergeant."


End file.
